One of the most famous American figures to inexplicably
disappear was Jimmy Hoffa, the famed president of the Teamsters Union from
1957 until he went to prison in 1967. There was no question that Hoffa had a
lot of enemies in his day and perhaps none so powerful as Robert F. Kennedy,
the president’s brother and the attorney general from 1961 to 1964. Hoffa’s
ties to organized crime landed him in prison but it would not be until those
same gangsters turned against him would those ties lead to his disappearance
and likely murder. And while Hoffa’s body has never been found, there is
little question about whether or not he is dead. One way or another, Hoffa is
not coming back...

For many years, Hoffa was the
controversial leader of the Teamsters Union, which boasted strong
connections to organized crime. Despite his underworld dealings though,
Hoffa was immune to prosecution through the 1950’s. In the early 1960’s,
he became the chief target of Bobby Kennedy, chief counsel to the Senate
Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field
(popularly called the McClellan Committee), and later, the attorney
general. In 1961, Kennedy made Hoffa the top priority of his
administration and his efforts resulted in the labor leader’s 1962 trial
for extorting illegal payments from a firm that employed Teamsters. The
proceedings ended in a hung jury but then Hoffa was arrested for
attempting to bribe one of the jurors. He was sentenced to eight years in
prison.

Hoffa (Right) at
labor rally with his wife (Corbis)

In 1964, Hoffa was convicted of misappropriating $1.7
million in union pension funds but managed to stay out of prison until 1967.
He ended up serving 58 months and has his sentence commuted by President Nixon
with the condition that he stayed out of union politics until 1980, which
would have been the full term of his prison sentence. Hoffa didn’t take this
condition seriously and he started legal action to get it set aside. In
addition, he went ahead with efforts to regain control of the union from his
former “right-hand man”, Frank Fitzsimmons. This maneuver did not sit well
with mob leaders, as Fitzsimmons was much easier to manipulate than the
stubborn Hoffa and could always be counted on to look the other way. He was
also welcome at the White House, which Hoffa was not, and was infinitely more
desirable as the head of the union. Hoffa was warned several times by mobsters
to stop interfering and trying to regain his position but, not surprisingly,
he refused to listen.

The Red Fox
Restaurant, where Hoffa was last seen (Corbis)

On July 30, 1975, Hoffa went to the Red
Fox Restaurant outside of Detroit to allegedly meet three men, a Detroit
labor leader, an important local mobster and a powerful figure in New
Jersey Teamster politics. Hoffa arrived first, around 2:00 in the
afternoon, but after waiting nearly 30 minutes, none of the others had
arrived. Annoyed, he called his wife and told her that he was going to
wait for a few more minutes before giving up. This was the last time that
she ever spoke with her husband.

At 2:45, Hoffa was seen getting into a car in the
restaurant parking lot with several other men. Investigators are pretty sure
that he never got out of the car alive. According to FBI investigators, Hoffa
had been brought to a peace conference with mobster Anthony “Tony Pro”
Provenzano and then had been killed. Provenzano was just one of the long list
of suspects in Hoffa’s disappearance, although he had a good alibi at the time
of the union leader vanished. In fact, some would say that it was too good.
Tony was apparently touring a number of union officials around Hoboken, New
Jersey on July 30. He made not have actually “done the deed” but that did not
mean that he wasn’t involved.

Provenzano was far from alone on the suspect list. The
number of possible killers grew as investigators probed their underworld
connections and spoke with convicts who were looking for reductions in their
sentences. The main suspects were Provenzano, Russell Bufaliano and two Hoffa
cronies, Thomas Andretta and Gabriel Briguglio. Another suspect, Briguglio’s
brother, Salvatore, was believed to be informing to the FBI when he was shot
to death in March 1978.

As the investigation continued on, loose ends began to
unravel everywhere. One of the most obvious mysteries was why Provenzano would
have linked himself to a meeting with Hoffa if he planned to kill him? This
seemed almost as odd as why the men who were supposed to kill Hoffa showed up
45 minutes late! This was not the usual for mob hitmen, who find punctuality
certainly makes the job easier. These questions notwithstanding, the
authorities were able to track down the auto that Hoffa got into and they did
find traces of blood and hair inside. They were convinced that Hoffa got into
the car and then was garroted from behind.

But was he really killed? Some insisted that he was not.
One union official, after long bouts of questioning by the FBI, swore that
Hoffa had skipped off to Brazil with a “black go-go dancer”. Supposedly, this
was the inside story among union members!

In all reality though, it is unlikely to be the truth. In
the years since 1975, Hoffa has been declared legally dead and most of the
suspects in the case are dead themselves or have gone to prison on other
charges. Any convictions for the murder of the vanished union leader would
depend on testimony from an inside source - and don’t look for that anytime
soon! As one unidentified union official stated: “We all know who did it. It
was Tony and those guys of his from New Jersey. It’s common knowledge. But the
cops need a corroborating witness, and it doesn’t look like they’re about to
get one, does it?”

There have been many stories and theories about what
happened to Hoffa that day. Here are a few of them:

- According to Ralph Picardo, the convict who gave up the
main suspects in the case, Hoffa’s body was put in a 55-gallon steel drum and
carted away in a truck. Picardo said he didn’t know where it was taken
but one theory had it that the drum was buried on the grounds of Brother
Moscato’s garbage dump, a toxic waste site in Jersey City, New Jersey.

- According to another snitch, Hoffa’s body was taken to
New Jersey where it was mixed into the concrete that was used to construct the
New York Giant’s football stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. He was also
said to have been encased in the foundation of a public works garage in
Cadillac, Michigan and buried under the helipad at the Sheraton Savannah
Resort Hotel, which at the time of his disappearance was owned by the
Teamsters.

- Hoffa was said to have been buried in a gravel pit in
Highland, Michigan, which was owned by his brother William; crushed in an
automobile compactor at Central Sanitation Services in Hamtramck, Michigan or
buried in a field in Waterford Township, Michigan.

- He was also alleged to have been ground up at a meat
processing plant and then dumped in a Florida swamp or disintegrated at a
fat-rendering plant.

Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982, but his case
remains open. A special agent at the FBI’s Detroit field office is still
assigned to it. The investigation has generated over 16,000 pages of documents
gathered from interviews, wiretaps, and surveillance, but despite the
government’s best efforts to get to the bottom of Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance,
what really happens to him remains a mystery.

And so, officially, Jimmy Hoffa walked away from a Detroit
restaurant one day and vanished into the ether. He was never seen or heard
from again. Whether or not his body is hidden away in a landfill or beneath
the concrete of a football stadium is anyone’s guess, but one things is for
sure -- we’ll certainly never see him again.